


A Moment in Time

by Tseecka



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Changing the past, Gen, Moral Dilemmas, Time Travel, drabble prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 06:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1808137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders is given a chance to go back in time and re-do one single event, which is how he finds himself outside of Enchanter Thekla's door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment in Time

In the end, he comes back to this moment. He always comes back to this moment; in his dreams, his waking nightmares, in the grip of the wine he drinks down like water of an evening. He’d never considered that such a thing might be possible; idle thought, the daydreams of a desperate and despondent man. Yet when the opportunity comes—when the thing, shade or spirit or something other some to him, shows him a map of his life writ large and clear and bloodily sorrowful and asks him to choose—there is no hesitation.   
  
He’s always known where he would go, were he given the chance. What he would do. And now…now he finds himself here.   
  
The memory of this day is no more vivid for being in it; he’s preserved it perfectly in his memory, every tiny little detail, revisiting it daily out of hope, and sorrow, and some sort of wicked self-punishment. He is a young apprentice, in the itchy, ill-fitting robes that belie his station. There is a large tome in the crook of his right arm and he knows the title without needing to glance down. His hand is poised, ready to knock at the heavy oaken door before which he stands. Before, he knocked, eager, weight shifting between his feet in an odd sort of dance as he waited for it to swing open—for his life to change, though when he was this young he had no idea that that would be the outcome.   
  
But now—now he pulls his hand away, fingers curling even more tightly into his palm, the nails cutting into his skin. His fist hangs at his side, and he takes a careful step back, and another, until his back meets the wall and he slides down in a pool of rustling fabric, eyes staring at the door.   
  
At Enchanter Thekla’s door.   
  
This was the day, the moment, that everything changed. He had knocked on that door, and Karl had answered, his eyes curious at the fresh face that waited outside.  _'You said something in your lecture today, Enchanter Thekla,'_  he had said, without preamble, without warning.  _'And I wanted to ask you what you meant.'_  
  
And then they had sat together in Karl’s office, sharing tea and the Enchanter’s dinner tray, talking until the sun had fully set outside the tiny arrow slit of a window and the room was bathed in darkness except for the light of the candles Anders had lit, to Karl’s genuine delight, with barely a twist of his fingers. Anders had learned more in that one day than in all his years at the Circle before; and by the light of those candles, Karl had stoked a flame in him that burned higher and hotter with every passing month, turning an reckless but obedient boy into the germinating seed of an entire rebellion, a revolution.   
  
And where had that brought him, he thought, tilting his head back to meet the cool stone, eyes sliding helplessly closed. An act of terror; the murder of innocents; the incitement of war. He couldn’t shut his eyes at the end of the day without seeing the betrayal in their faces, and Karl, Tranquil, begging for death. He could undo it all, in this moment, if he just turned and forced himself to walk away.   
  
He left the book on the floor—once this was done, his younger self would have no need of it—and got to his feet. It was unwise to linger, but he did so anyway, standing in the center of the corridor and wishing, aching, for the chance to open that door and see Karl’s face—unlined, unweathered, as young as Anders had ever known him, filled with hope—just one single last time. As he ruminated in the hall, the shrieking laughs of children echoed from behind him, and he turned just in time to avoid being bowled over by a pair of Circle fosters. He recognized them, he thought, even if he didn’t know their names.   
  
Such laughter, amidst such oppression, he thought with a shiver, crossing his arms over his chest.   
  
The thought gave him pause. He looked back to the door; he needed only to delay a few moments more, and one of the Templars would come to fetch Karl for dinner, and the opportunity would be gone. He had come here with the intention of saving lives, of avoiding the mistakes of his own future—the pain and suffering he had, would, cause. It was for the betterment of everyone, of all those he had ever known. 

But….was it?  
  
He could still hear the laughter of the children down the hall. 

Karl would never take action on his own—he was rebellious in thought, but not in deed, and could only ever hope to drop his hints in his lectures. And in all his years, Anders had never heard of another mage in Kinloch Hold that shared the views he and Karl had—perhaps if there had been, they would not have been so weak, so defenseless, so desperate. He had been thinking so clearly of the faces of his newest friends—of Hawke, of Varric and Avenline, even of Fenris—yet how could he have forgotten the faces of those who lived out their lives behind these walls?  
  
If he turned around now, true, he would spare them all the grief of betrayal and the suffering of war—but there would be no rebellion. There would be no change. Was it really worth it to undo all of his actions if it meant once again condemning the Thedosian mages to decades more of servitude and oppression?  
  
The thought hit him like a slap in the face, a cold blast of icy fear. He had been so ready, so eager, to have the chance to undo his mistakes. He had spent so long thinking about it, wondering what he could have changed, and it all came back to this moment. He could change everything and heal the pain he caused—but until this moment, he had never considered the expense.   
  
He felt a shudder pass through him as he realized how selfish he had very nearly been. How close he had come to throwing away everything that matter, for the sake of assuaging his own guilty conscience. He glanced to one side—the heavy tread of Templar boots was coming down the hall. His moment was nearly gone.   
  
This time, he didn’t bother to knock.   
  
This time, he was the one who shut the door.  
  
This time, he didn’t waste Karl’s precious time with prevarication and tiptoeing around the subject, dropping the book on the floor and leaning on Karl’s desk with an urgent whisper;  
  
 _’Tell me how we are going to free the mages.’_  
  
And this time, when Karl’s eyes lit up with that so-familiar fire, Anders gave in, took something selfish for himself, and used his one single moment to do what he should have done years ago; he kissed him. 


End file.
